Sign-In
Cart
The God Revolution: How Ideas About God Radically Changed During The Modern Era
Paperback
PhilosophyReligion General General World History
Publisher Price: $16.00
ISBN13: 9780473187637
Publisher: Attar Books
Published: Jul 20 2017
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.76
Height: 0.53 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Our view of the universe has changed radically since the Renaissance. We no longer think, speak, live, or see the world as our forebears did. The Protestant Reformation, the replacing of feudal social hierarchies with liberal democracy, the separation of State and Church, the industrial revolution, the advent of universal education, shifting from mythological religious explanations of the world to those offered by scientific materialism, the rise of the autonomous individual - these collectively created the modern and changed our intellectual outlook profoundly. With them, inevitably came new ideas about God.
The God Revolution examines the social, intellectual, and religious changes that have occurred since 1620, when Frances Bacon first proposed the scientific method, through to today when theologians are grappling with God in the context of our current vision of a mind-bogglingly immense universe.
Before the modern era Westerners looked at the world through the lens of religion, using mythological stories to explain how and why the world is the way it is. Truth came from God, who was perfect and all-knowing. We knew what God wanted of us because His Word was recorded in the Bible. The Word gave us God's infallible Truth. Social structures reinforced the religious outlook. The Medieval world was ordered into a feudal hierarchy in which serfs obeyed the aristocracy, aristocrats obeyed the Catholic Church, and the Church obeyed God. The result was that God was the perfect and benign controller of the world, manipulating all that happened through His representatives on Earth, and occasionally directly and miraculously intervening Himself.
But after the Renaissance Western societies changed profoundly. The Protestant Reformation, initiated by Martin Luther, challenged the religious and political control of the Catholic Church. Liberal democracies separated State and Church. Industrialization sucked workers off the land and into cities. Severed from their traditional aristocratic masters, the medieval feudal hierarchy disintegrated. Enlightenment thinkers, lead by John Locke and Emmanuel Kant, no longer believed in miracles and encouraged each person to use rational thought to decide what was true for themselves. And the sciences showed the limitations of religious explanations of the world.
All this meant that where previously the view had been that not a sparrow falls without God knowing of it, now it was seen that gravity caused the sparrow to fall, mathematics could be used to calculate the sparrow's trajectory, biology could discern what species the sparrow was, and newly created city by-laws dictated how the corpse should be disposed of.
These changes initiated four hundred years of grappling with God, in which enquiring theologians, fearless scholars, progressive social reformers, and boundary-breaking scientists collectively created an exciting new worldview which required an equally challenging new concept of God to inhabit it.
The God Revolution surveys the key ideas of historical thinkers who have shaped our modern view of reality, and the contributions of contemporary thinkers who are exploring ways of situating God in the midst of the modern world
Also in
Philosophy
Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea
Hunt-Hendrix, Leah
Taylor, Astra
Hardcover
In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument
Williams, Bernard
Paperback
The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge
Fixico, Donald Lee
Paperback
Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media
Lowenstein, Adam
Paperback
Machine Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Spiritual Freedom and the Re-Animation of Matter
Lafitte, Luke
Paperback
The Sociogony: Social Facts and the Ontology of Objects, Things, and Monsters
Worrell, Mark P.
Paperback
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Robert M.
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Hardcover
The Electromagnetic Brain: Em Field Theories on the Nature of Consciousness
Joye, Shelli Renée
Paperback
Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida
Roudinesco, Elisabeth
Paperback
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science
Vico, Giambattista
Paperback
The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy
Giridharadas, Anand
Hardcover
The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
Gottlieb, Anthony
Paperback
The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations
Barnes, Jonathan
Julia, Annas
Annas, Julia
Paperback
Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy
Burt, Donald X.
Paperback
Suffering and the Search for Meaning: Contemporary Responses to the Problem of Pain
Rice, Richard
Paperback
Essays V2: Moral And Entertaining On The Various Faculties And Passions Of The Human Mind (1815)
Clarendon, Edward Hyde Earl of
Paperback
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Hanselman, Stephen
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger
Hardcover
The Obstacle Is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us about Living
Jones, Peter
Hardcover
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition: The Global Bestseller
Mackesy, Charlie
Hardcover
Bless & Release: The physics of letting go-and wanting what's meant for you.
Laporte, Danielle
Paperback
The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
Hardy, Janet W.
Easton, Dossie
Paperback
Eight Million Ways to Happiness: Wisdom for Inspiration and Healing from the Heart of Japan
Yoda, Hiroko
Hardcover
Self-Reliance and Nature: The Complete First and Second Series of Emerson's Essays
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Hardcover